They’re not too tough
As you make your way through Dead Island 2, the game will gently ease you into all of the campaign’s concepts: including blocking, attacking, drop kicking, Curveballs (more on that soon), and inherent character abilities. All of those need to be used together to take out Becki the Bride: the first major “boss” of the game.
The Shuriken Curveball (ability) is insanely good early in the game
One of the cooler mechanical elements of Dead Island 2 is the Curveball system, which is a fancy term for “active ability.” While most survival/crafting hybrid games would force you to laboriously find ways to replenish projectiles like Shurikens, you can “cast” them indefinitely as long as you have the ability: and wait between cooldowns. To swap between your two allotted Curveballs lots, just press left/right on the d-pad.
Shurikens should take up a permanent slot as one of your two Curveballs early on, as they can one-shot enemies and deal lots of damage to elites/bosses. Just make sure you throw them close to an enemy so all of the Shurikens hit and deal the most collective damage.
As a tutorial, Becki isn’t too tough, but you do need to learn the fundamentals
One of the key things the Becki fight teaches you is parrying. By pressing L1 (LB) right before an attack hits, you can parry an enemy attack and temporarily stun them. For regular enemies, this can trigger a fatal finisher, but for bosses, it only momentarily dazes them. Swap to your best weapon and keep hitting them to deal a ton of damage, then reorient and go back into defensive mode.
When adds (other enemies) come into the fight, save your Chem Bomb Curveball to temporarily stun the group. If you time things right, you can use a Chem Bomb during every add phase and keep the horde under control: focusing all of your attention on Becki.
Keep playing on the defensive and striking when it’s safe, and you’ll take very little damage from Becki. Once they’re defeated, you’ll earn the War Cry ability and can continue on with the story. Head back to the mansion to get the next story mission underway.
